


Love is Madness

by Tyrror



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Dumb boys being dumb, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Polyamory, mostly stans POV, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 16:03:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18781558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyrror/pseuds/Tyrror
Summary: Being a teenager is hard enough as it is. It's even harder when you find yourself falling in love with your best friend. But sometimes, even things like this, have a way of working themselves out.





	Love is Madness

It was the little things that made him finally realize.

 

The little things that had been there the entire time but only became obvious when he started looking back and, now that he had seen them, were all that he could see looking forward.

 

It was the way that they clung to each other, gasping for breath when they were sixteen and Bill had been all but hurtled into the Quarry waters after he accidentally implied that Bev’s ass looked fat in her new shorts because sixteen year old boys are dumb and words are hard.

 

Being grabbed by the hand and pulled off the porch into the pouring summer rain. Told that dancing in the rain was what boys did and trying to hide the smile crossing his features at the ridiculous notion. Not noticing how comfortable he was holding that hand in the rain until it was gone and the worst rendition of iconic disco moves he had ever seen began to follow.

 

Whispers in the dead of night as they huddled together surrounded by five sleeping forms. Secret words held in hot breath that brushed the shell of ears with only the dark to hide scarlet features and choked giggles.

 

“I think I love him.”

 

Words said with an easy tumble while staring at the the stars. A soft smile on lips that, for once, weren’t joking. A scene that was altogether beautiful and terrible in the way that it made his chest ache and a chill run down his spine.

 

“What?” Stan asked.

 

“Eddie,” Richie rolled his eyes to take in the other boy’s profile where they lay next to each other on the Tozier’s roof, “I think I love him,” he finished with a soft lilt that betrayed ‘bashful, honest Richie’. Someone who Stan could count on one hand the number of times he had seen in all their high school career.

 

“Oh,” he finally responded, a little too late, cringing at the overly awkward nature and how his brain couldn’t catch up to his lips.

 

It was the way his stomach churned at those words, that little logical part of his brain asking if he was going to be sick, that warned him of eminent danger.

 

A car horn blared in the distance, the type of sound that shatters the little world of privacy you’ve built for yourself, and his world shifted...twice.

 

He felt movement and then giant blue eyes were looking down at him, Richie’s face upside down and glasses dangling low on his nose.

 

“You won’t tell him, right?” He blurted in typical Richie fashion...moment over.

 

“I...no.” 

 

Richie rolled back out of his visual field, settling back on the roof before something solid knocked the breath from Stan’s chest.

 

“Thanks, Stanny. That’s my best boy.” Richie grinned at the sky.

 

“I think I love him,” he heard replayed in his head...but this time, they weren’t in Richie’s voice.

 

\----------------------

 

“Staniel!”

 

He braced for impact as the arm pulled him into Richie’s side with far more force than was needed. Despite the jarring addition, he continued his determined trek toward chemistry.

 

“Have you seen what my spaghetti is wearing today?” Richie asked, barreling on with the answer before any retort could be given. “He’s wearing my favorite color.”

 

“He’s wearing an orange sweater that’s two sizes too big.” Stan said flatly, avoiding a book-laden freshman.

 

“It’s adorable, right?” Richie smirked.

 

“Your favorite color is green.” Stan glanced over at him as they continued to walk.

 

“My favorite color is anything my - EddiePie!” 

 

Stan slowed his walk by half a step to avoid the punch thrown past him and into Richie’s side while Eddie fell in on his other side.

 

“Stop saying things like that,” Eddie glanced around before adjusting his books to settle from where he had disturbed them as they rested against his chest, “You’re going to give people ideas.”

 

Leaning forward so both the other boy’s could easily see his face, Richie waggled his eyebrows, “Maybe I want there to be ideas - Ow!”

 

He wasn’t quite quick enough to dodge the attacking spiral notebook.

 

Stepping forward, out from under the arm of the stunned boy, Stan veered towards a classroom door. In response to a desperate cry of “Stan, my love, don’t leave me here!” he promptly flipped the bird over one shoulder and vanished from sight.

 

\-----------------

 

“You only graduate once, my man!” Richie complained for what seemed like the thousandth time.

 

“I am not getting drunk with a bunch of strangers in some house I’ve never been to before just because you want to fulfil some stupid rebellious teenage dream.”

 

Richie groaned from where he was perched on the edge of Stan’s bedroom desk before he began letting himself fall backward in an exaggerated flop. Stan only had seconds to grab the paper he was working on before the gangly teen hit the hardwood with a thud, his breath rushing out with the force of it. 

 

“Seriously, you ass?” Stan tried to sound incredulous but couldn’t keep the suppressed laughter from his voice. “Move! I need to finish this.” He added, waving the papers in Richie’s face.

 

“No,” Richie swatted at the papers, “Not until you agree to stop being a stick in the mud.”

 

“I will not be swayed.” Stan said matter-of-factly before resting his homework on Richies abdomen and going back to his essay as if the boy weren’t in the way.

 

Howling with laughter at the surprisingly ticklish sensation of being used as a desk, Richie flailed all four limbs violently in different directions before rolling to escape and promptly falling off the desk. This landed him, if only temporarily, draped over Stan’s legs in his desk chair before the boy pushed himself back and let Richie roll unceremoniously onto the floor.

 

“Poor sportsmanship!” Richie hollard from his place on the floor.

 

“Nonsense,” Stan retorted quickly, nudging Richie with the toe of one sock, “I kept it above the belt.”

 

“That’s what I meant,” Richie tossed himself over to lie on his back so he could look up at Stan with a mischievous grin, “What kind of proper sport keeps hands as pretty as yours above the belt?”

 

Stan coughed at the mental image and tossed his pen at the laughing boy before managing to choke out a quick, “Beep, Beep, Richie.” The back of his neck was burning and watching the way that Richie’s shirt rode up ever so slightly as he laughed on the floor at his feet did nothing to cool it down. Gathering what he could of his composure, he proceeded to kick Richie away from the front of his desk with motions that looked malicious but in reality hardly touched the taller boy.

 

“There went any hope you had of getting me at a graduation party.” 

 

\-----------------------

 

He was at a graduation party.

 

More specifically, he was at their private graduation party.

 

Bev had offered it as an olive branch between the two when it began to look like things might come to blows even though Stan knew he would have back down long before then.

 

So here they were in the Tozier’s living room like so many times before except this time there was a distinct lack of parental supervision and an exceedingly larger than normal quantity of alcoholic drinks which Eddie was eyeing suspectly.

 

The boy in question sat neatly at the end of the couch which Richie had perched on the arm of shortly after. Stan watched from where he stood in the entryway as Richie braced himself on the back of the couch and leaned down, whispering something unheard into the smaller boy’s ear and causing him to throw a fist toward his mouth to cover the giggles. 

 

Something Stan was only just beginning to come to terms with began to swim somewhere near his stomach when Eddie glanced up, eyes bright with contained laughter, and looked straight at him. There was a moment in which the two simply looked at one another, a long pause in space and time, but then Stan blinked and without thinking he turned and began to climb the stairs.

 

\-------------------

 

Standing in the middle of Richie’s bedroom, he wasn’t surprised to hear the door open behind him just moments after he had closed it. Turning around, however, he was surprised that it wasn’t Richie here to call him a party pooper or Bev slipping into mom mode.

 

It was Eddie.

 

Still several inches shorter than almost everyone else at their school, he wasn’t exactly an intimidating presence but something inside of the taller boy still quavered at the notion. 

 

“Stan,” he said softly, testing the waters, “Everything okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Stan responded in a clipped tone that he caught the second it left his mouth and for which he cursed silently. “I’m fine. Just needed a minute.”

 

“Okay,” Eddie said in a tone that was surprisingly exasperated given the length of the conversation, “That was a stupid question. How about I try again. What’s wrong?”   
  


“Noth…”  Stan didn’t even make it through the word before he was cut off.

 

“Don’t tell me nothing, because we both know that’s a lie.”

 

“Well since you’re obviously already in the know why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” Stan shot back, nostrils flared and fists held loosely at his side with an anger that surprised even himself.

He could feel something coming to a head inside of him and, against all better judgement, he was talking before he could stop himself.

 

“You have no idea,” He paused, uncertain how he was planning to finish that sentence. “No idea what it’s like…” all he knew was that he wasn’t going to finish it with the truth, but then the truth came back at him instead.

 

“What it’s like to watch the person you’re in love with fall in love with someone else?” Eddie offered, his voice oddly tired.

 

They stared at each other for a moment then, the words hanging heavy between them. Stans fists were still balled at his side but now he was too stunned to feel much of anything and it was ultimately Eddie who broke the silence yet again.

 

“Yes...I do.”

 

\-------------

 

To say that Richie had been confused when Eddie bolted from the room would be an understatement. He had thought things were going well. Really well, in fact. The kind of “going well” that gives dumb teenage boys the inclination to actually act on their feelings and possibly ruin one of the best friendships he’d ever had.

 

And then Eddie ran.

 

Ok, he didn’t so much run as look adorably confused for a few seconds before slipping out from under Richie’s arm and muttering, “Be right back.”

 

He had tried to wait, really he had, but sitting still was never in the Richie Tozier dictionary and the curiosity was running high this time around so... 

 

It had been a full 58 seconds before he bounced up off the arm of the couch and launched himself toward the entryway to the living room and the stairs beyond it. Bounding up two at a time as was his normal on legs that were part spring and part jelly, he used his momentum and the banister at the top to arch around the corner and land with an almost silent “thump.”

 

He had made it to the door of his bedroom and was about to burst through in traditional fashion when he spotted the crack and realized the words that were drifting through.

 

\------------------------

 

“Sometimes, with how stupid Richie is, I forget that the rest of us really aren’t that much better.” Eddie mumbled, crossing the room and pushing himself up to sit on Richie’s cluttered desk.

 

“Richie was valedictorian.” Stan replied, his words on autopilot as he was currently racking his brain trying to figure out what was going on anymore.

 

Eddie leveled a glare at him before continuing. “You know what I mean, dickwad. We all saw him run into traffic last week to avoid a single bee.”

 

Stan chuckled at the mental image. “Ok, so common sense isn’t his forte, point being?”

 

“Point being that it isn’t really a forte for the rest of us either. Or at least not those present in this room.” Eddie sighed and looked down at where his legs were swinging on the side of the desk. He could hear the intake of breath on Stan’s part which signaled an imminent retort but held up one hand to stave it off.

 

“I was fifteen when it hit me.” Eddie said softly, as if afraid the walls themselves were listening.

 

“Hit you?” Stan questioned.

 

“Like a bus...a ton of bricks...pick your metaphor. I always hated it when he would leave, climb back out my window at the end of the night and, for what I think is forever, I had convinced myself it was simply because I didn’t like being alone. Didn’t like being trapped with just my mother again. But that night I was lying on my bed just minutes after he left and...it hit me. I remember sitting up and just thinking ‘fuck, I’m so screwed,’ before I even really understood why I was thinking it.”

 

There was a stretch of silence as Stan let the words settle into his mind. The unspoken revelation filling the space between them.

 

“Seventeen.” He said softly. “Just before school started for this last year. We were on the roof at his house and he told me,” Stan paused then, realizing what he was about to say, “He told me something and made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. He was so close and it was like everything suddenly made sense...and it was horrible.”

 

“I know right?” Eddie glanced up through his lashes and chuckled before flicking his eyes back down to examine his nails as he picked at them. “You spend your entire life waiting for this moment because everyone tells you that falling in love is amazing and somehow we both manage to pick that mess.”

 

The sound of Stan snorting echoed through the room and Eddie grins at that before continuing.

 

“I used to kind of hate you, you know?” Stan looks taken aback by the comment, “I mean, not really hate you. You’re one of my best friends. We’re part of the Losers club and I take a bullet for you and all that...but he looks at you like the sun shines out of your ass, hangs on your every word...talks about you  _ constantly _ .”

 

“You sound like you’re talking about yourself.” Stan said a little more snidely than he had intended.

 

“Good God you can be dense sometimes,” Eddie rolled not just his eyes but his entire head, “I didn’t say that this was past tense. That was just a description of what’s happened in the past week. At first I hated it. It was a reminder of what I couldn’t have but now I...I get it.”

 

“Well, he’s told me what he wants and it’s not…” Stan trailed off at the unfortunately timed squeaking of the door behind him.

 

Both turned wide eyes in the direction of the sound and were met with equally wide eyes set behind thick lenses.

 

The air sat thick with tension for a beat before Richie finally breathed into it.

 

“Stanny…” Richie stepped into the room and Stan made a movement as if he going to step around him and through the now open doorway but suddenly finds the way blocked by the door itself, clicking softly but firmly into place. “Babe, wait.”

 

“You can’t just throw words like that around!” Stan’s harshness catches everyone off guard and Richie finds himself dropping the hand he never realized he had raised to reach for the other boy.

 

“Even if I mean them?” He asked softly. “Have meant them. Every time.”

 

The boys look at each other with only a foot of space between them and the sound of breathing heavy in the air.

 

“Stan, I’ve loved you since we were twelve.” Richie continues because, fuck it, they may as well see this through to the end. “But you were always perfect, destined to have someone who was good enough to live up to that, and I didn’t want to screw up what we had so I just...tried to let it go.”

 

In the aftermath of that revelation, Stan glanced over at the desk where Eddie had been seated...wordless...waiting. Richie’s eyes followed his and the smile that ghosted over his lips was tinged with sadness.

 

“This is some fucking choice I’m gonna have to make now, eh?” He said with a hollow laugh.

 

“Who said anything about choices?” Eddie chimed in for the first time since Richie had stepped into the room. “I mean…” he chewed on his lip as a tinge of red started to snake its way up his neck, “like I said I…” he nods at Stan and shrugged, somehow simultaneously, “I...I get it. The hair, the ‘everything in its place’ perfection, the composure that I have absolutely never contemplated getting to break under questionable circumstances.”

 

“What are you saying, Eds?” Richie’s eyes ticked back and forth between the other two boys in the room, his brows furrowing closer with each passing second.

 

“I’m saying,” Eddie hopped down from the desk and toed at the floor before looking up through his lashes, “That I’m hoping I’m about to watch my new boyfriends kiss for the first time.”

 

“Boyfriends?” Stan croaked.

 

“Ya know. If you…” Eddie trailed off with a shrug, looking down again.

 

Richie’s eyes were huge behind his glasses as he stared with an almost panicked expression in Stan’s direction.

 

“Yeah,” Stan finally breathed, “Yeah I’d…”

 

But he never got to finish as Richie closed the gap between them with a single step and pressed his lips to Stan’s. It was nervous and soft and all the things that first kisses were meant to be...and then Stan’s mind finished rebooting. He fisted the front of Richie’s shirt with both hands and pushed the teen against the door, leaning into him and pressing his lips back hard enough that he knew he needed to back off or he was going to hurt one of them but he couldn’t find the urge to care. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard Eddie giggle but it didn’t seem important. He could deal with that in a minute, right now he just needed to keep kissing Richie until he was sure this wasn’t a dream.

 

The door at Richie’s back jolted suddenly as someone pounded their fist against it and Stan jumped back nearly to the middle of the room where he felt hands land on his waist in an effort to steady him.

 

“Hey Fuckers!” The sound of Bev’s voice filtered through the door. “Finish up the circle jerk and get out here! We’re doing shots!”

 

Stan looked down with wide eyes to where Eddie was still gripping his waist and desperately tried to use his face to ask questions he was afraid to put into words. The face Eddie pulled in response was what he could only assume meant, ‘I don’t know but I’m gonna panic, too.’

 

“Give us a minute to put our pants back on and we’ll be right down, toots!” Richie yelled back, his voice holding only a trace of the shaking that was in his hands.

 

“Just hurry up!” Her voice came back, already fading as she walked back towards the stairs.

 

There was a long moment of making sure she was finally gone before Eddie glanced between the two of them and let a small smile slip on to his face.

 

“So...is it my turn now?”


End file.
